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17 de set. 2018

The September 16th Manifesto on political prisoners, by ANC Palamós

Here is a bilingual (Catalan-English) version of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana's Manifesto read in Palamós (and elsewhere) on September 16 2018, exactly 11 months after our former chair, and the chair of Òmnium Cultural, were arrested on charges of... rebellion!

**** If necessary, click below on "Més informació" to access the full text ****

Eleven months ago today, the
former President of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana,
Jordi Sánchez, and the President of Omnium Cultural, Jordi
Cuixart, were locked in prison for non-existent crimes they did
not commit. And in all this time, we have not ceased to mobilize
ourselves to demand the release of Jordi Sànchez and Jordi
Cuixart and the other victims of reprisals: President Puigdemont,
President Forcadell, Vice President Junqueras, Minister Bassa,
Comín, Forn, Ponsatí, Puig, Romeva, Rull, Serret and Turull as
well as Anna Gabriel, Marta Rovira, Valtònyc, Adri, Tamara and
many other victims of this general cause against Catalonia’s
independence.

They have all become political
hostages that the State displays as an example to us of what can
happen if we insist on our determination. They want us to stop by
cutting back our civil and political rights. Today the political
prisoners, those in exile, the people being investigated and
facing prosecution, as well as their families, are paying the
price for us to exercise our rights: The right to protest, in the
case of Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, and the right to vote,
in the case of the political prisoners and exiles.

They are closer to us now, to be
sure, since being transferred to Catalan prisons several months
ago; this was their right, and not thanks to any concession of an
alleged thaw, that cannot be seen in the facts. It has allowed
their families to access them more easily, and for us to be able
to get closer to the cells where they are locked up, but in no way
does this relieve us. In this time we have banged saucepans, sent
letters, called on institutions, throughout the world, to demand
their release. And we have held demonstrations, concentrations,
yellow (fund-raising) dinners and all kinds of events, peacefully.

But not only we have not obtained
the just and desired answer but we have been attacked, persecuted,
beaten up, and summoned by the courts, and we have seen how our
[yellow] ribbons and banners have been torn down with impunity in
search of a civil confrontation that they shall never and under
any circumstances find, angling for a violent response that we
shall not give them, instigating a breakdown of [social] cohesion
that we shall never allow. We shall not fall into a war of
ribbons, but nor will they curtail our freedom of expression. They
will get tired of removing them before we get tired of putting
them up in squares and streets.

And we denounce the use of the
extreme right by certain State institutions and political parties,
with the aim of breaking the country and dividing our society, and
we tell them loud and clear; they won’t get their own way. And
in the same vein, we also demand that our institutions confront
this impunity, which must not be allowed ever again, for Fascism
is fought thanks to the legitimacy of our institutions.

The only thing that we expect now
from the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez is for him to urge
the Public Prosecutor to withdraw all charges against the
prisoners, the exiles and the prosecuted and to stop blaming them
for a purported violence which is completely non-existent in the
eyes of Europe and the whole world. In a few months the trial will
begin, and despite the procedural irregularities, the absurd
accusations without evidence and the obvious contrasts with
European justice that make us blush in shame before the
non-existent separation of powers in Spain, the Spanish courts
have already written their judgments. An unjust, painful judicial
punishment is foreseen, and a response will have to be given to
it.

And we have the strength! A few
days ago, we filled the streets of Barcelona once again, for the
seventh year in a row, for the mandate of the referendum last
October to be implemented and for Catalonia to become an
independent state: the Catalan Republic.

Precisely for this reason, we
demand moves towards the Catalan Republic, because we know that
only with the Catalan Republic shall we be able to release the
prisoners and make the exiles return without fear of reprisals of
any kind, and that is why we will not give up the struggle to
achieve it as soon as possible.